The concern over greenhouse gases and their effect on the atmosphere and global ecosystem has grown over the last decade. Greater awareness of the effect of certain gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), has prompted efforts to reduce carbon emissions. As a result, many regulated industries incorporate local systems for scrubbing emissions to reduce the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases discharged into the atmosphere. Fossil fuel powered vehicles include catalytic converters to reduce harmful exhaust emissions.
However, cost and performance concerns have hampered compliance or even acceptance of systems to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, especially in growing industrial economies. In some cases the greenhouse gases can be recycled and re-used in combustion. However, many of the current approaches to minimizing greenhouse gas emissions simply convert the harmful component of the gases into an output that can be disposed of in a landfill.
As concern over greenhouse gases, and especially CO2, increases alternative solutions become more critical, particularly solutions that do not require government-mandated and regulated compliance. An optimal solution would be to reduce greenhouse gases while generating a useful product that does not require some other form of disposal.